


Like A Bird Set Free

by abbyli (orphan_account)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 1930s, Amnesiac Bellamy, Anastasia AU, Angst, Clarke and Roan : The Partnership from Hell, Con Artist Clarke, F/M, Fluffy McFluff, Lost Prince Bellamy, Sort of a Road Trip?, There's boats and planes and trains instead, background lincoln/Octavia - Freeform, gender swapped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 03:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11199351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/abbyli
Summary: When con artist Clarke Griffin hears the rumor of Bellamy Blake, the lost prince, being alive and his sister offering a major reward for his safe return, she doesn’t hesitate to try and cash in. She needs the money to be able to get back on her feet and start over.Auditioning fake Bellamys seems to be harder than she thought and she's ready to give up. But then she meets the perfect replica. A young man called ‘Bell’, suffering from amnesia and in need of false identification papers. She has no idea that the real thing has just walked into her life, with an offer of hope and a brand new love.





	Like A Bird Set Free

**a/n: I blame[Hayley](http://baloney-blake.tumblr.com/) for this. **

**.**

**1918**

_Bellamy is the first to hear the gunshots._

_His small sister looks up from the picture book he had placed in front of her, brows drawn together in confusion. “Bell, what was that?”_

_“Uh, nothing.” He pats the top of her head. “It’s almost time for sleep. You best get ready.”_

_The four year old heaves a dramatic sigh. Bellamy smiles, pulling himself up from his seat to make for the large bedroom door. Before his fingers can touch the handle, the door is pushed open and their mother staggers in, face drawn with fear. She wears a black coat that hangs past her waist, the buttons undone._

_“Oh thank heaven you are both here!” Aurora gasps. “Octavia get up! We need to get some warm clothes on you. Bellamy, you do the same thing!”_

_“Mother – what’s the matter?” Bellamy asks, not moving from his spot while Octavia immediately springs into action. Anything to get out of going to sleep for her. “Mother?”_

_Aurora kneels down in front of her nine year old son, grabbing his hands in hers. When she speaks, her voice is low so Octavia, who is rummaging around in her closet, will not hear. “Listen to me, my son. Some people are here that are trying to hurt us.Your father and I have to stay to help defend our home but you and little Octavia will flee. Marcus will be with the both of you, he will get you to safety.”_

_Bellamy immediately protests. “Mama, no!”_

_Aurora pulls him to her chest, holding him tightly but briefly. “I love you so much.”_

_“Mama...” He clings to her. Another gunshot rings out, much closer now._

_“I’m ready, Mama!” Octavia announces._

_Aurora reaches out a hand and pulls her daughter close before stripping off her coat and wrapping it around Bellamy’s shoulders. “There isn’t enough time to get your things, Bellamy. Marcus is waiting. Let’s go.”_

_A third gunshot._

_“Mama!” Octavia cries out, suddenly stricken with fear. Aurora wraps her arms around both children and guides them through the connecting door and out into the corridor._

_“Your highness!”_

_Aurora makes the mistake of turning. She quickly throws her body in front of her children, her back to them and her arms spread. “Bellamy, take Octavia and go!”_

_Bellamy wraps his arms around his sister’s middle, dragging her along the long cold corridor. There is a scream that he recognizes as his mother’s but he doesn’t dare slow down. Octavia is shouting, begging to go back . “We can’t, O. We can’t!”_

_“Why?” she demands. “Why Bell?!”_

_“Because –“ Their mother screams again, followed by another gunshot._

_Followed by silence._

Because she’s dead.

_They manage to make it down the servant’s stairs and into the kitchen. Marcus is there, already shepherding the terrified staff out the door and into the night. He gasps in relief when he sees them. “Thank heaven! Come along, let’s go!”_

_“Marcus, what is happening?” Bellamy demands. More gunshots echo in the floors over their heads. “Where is Papa?!”_

_“He’s –“ Their father’s oldest friend doesn’t even have to say the words for the young boy to understand. His eyes immediately fill up with tears and his arms slacken, Octavia squirming free and throwing herself around Marcus’s legs._

_The older man manages to gather up the small girl, almost tossing her over his shoulder. “Come along Bellamy. We have to go.”_

_This time it’s bells that sound._

_The bells of the grand church just across from the palace. Bellamy has never heard those bells before._

_He was named for the bells._

_“Bell!” Octavia shouts and Marcus freezes, realizing the boy is not with him. The crowd of people begins to gather and thicken. He feels the people closing in, tightening their hold on him. “Bell!”_

_“O!” He shouts back, reaching for her._

_The last thing he sees is Marcus’s stricken face before the world around him goes deathly silent._

_-;_

_“Young man. Young man, open your eyes.”_

_The world is so quiet except for this man’s booming voice. He sits up slowly, supported by the man’s hand. He feels another set of hands brushing something against his forehead. “Are you all right, child?” this second person asks him._

_He manages a nod. He isn’t sure actually._

_“Can you tell us your name?”_

_His name?_

_His name._

_He searches for that and he can feel it, right on the tip of his tongue. “Be...Bell.”_

_“Bell? Your name is Bell?” The man asks._

_He nods. The bells of the church ring again. When his vision finally focuses he sees the yard strewn with people. Some are laying in heaps on the cold ground, some are kneeling over others and trying to help like these two people here with him. “What happened?”_

_“You don’t remember?” the woman asks this time. She exchanges a glance with the man and then turning to a third person he hadn’t noticed before. A girl. “Clarke –“_

_The girl nods. “Yes mama.” The girl gets to her feet and runs over to where a small black vehicle is parked. The two others rise up, carefully pulling Bell with them._

_“We’re going to take you someplace safe, Bell,” The woman says to him. His heartbeat quickens in slight fear. “The orphanage is taking in children that have been separated from their parents. You can rest and try to remember what happened.”_

_Bell nods again. “All right.” He shouldn’t trust these people but he does. He’s not exactly sure why.The couple guides him to the car and puts him in the back next to the girl. The girl peers at him, her blue eyes etched with worry._

_“Hi. My name is Clarke,” she says. “They are my mama and papa. My mama’s a doctor!”_

_Bell nods at her words, turning his face away. The girl’s face falls and she reaches out a small hand, taking his gently._

_“It will be okay, Bell. Your mama and papa will be found.” She pats the back of his hand and his thumb snakes around to grab hers. They stay like that until they arrive at the orphanage._

_The building is small and lights fill every window. A woman walks out to meet them. “Another one, Abigail?”_

_“He was the last one we found,” Abigail replies. “Will you be able to handle it? How many children are you caring for now?”_

_“At least sixty,” the other woman says._

_“We could care for him for a few nights,” the man offers. “We have the room.”_

_“That’s all right, Jacob. The crowd will shrink within a few weeks as parents come to collect their children. We can find the space. At least he’ll have a bed.”_

_Abigail casts a look at Bell. “The one problem is –“ she gets out of the car and walks around the front to join the woman. They whisper quietly to each other, quiet enough that Bell cannot hear. The orphanage woman’s face changes, twisting in surprise before settling back to neutral._

_“A place to rest,” she says, parroting Abigail’s words. “Come along Bell.”_

_Bell looks back at Jacob and Abigail. Back at the girl sitting next to him, who gives him a reassuring smile. “I will come and visit you!” she proclaims and Bell cracks a smile, the muscles in his face feeling oddly tight._

_He gets out of the car and walks over to the woman, who holds out her hand to him. He takes it gingerly, casting one last look at the car filled with the people who saved him before walking into the crowded building that is alive with chatter and young lives just like his._

_-;_

**1934**

Octavia Blake breathes deeply, in and out.

“Are you all right, your highness?”

Her stomach turns at the name. She plasters on a smile. “I’m all right. Thank you.”

Her lady in waiting returns the smile, waiting to be excused. Octavia lets her go, waiting until the young woman closes the door of the study behind her before she collapses in her chair.

Octavia Blake is only twenty years old, soon to be twenty one, but she feels so much older.

Within a month she will become queen.

Glancing down at the newspaper that lays on her desk, her eyes trace the headline.

_Royal Prince Alive?_

Marcus called them ‘silly rumors’. Nothing to pay attention too, he insisted.

The rumors had begun on the summer of her sixteenth year when the official records of the palace massacre were released and she realized that her brother’s body had never been identified.

Her heart had soared, only to plummet when Marcus reminded her that they had seen Bellamy be torn away from them in the crowd of people trying to survive that horrible night. That many bodies still had not been identified.

But as the years ticked by and more of the dead were given names and brought home to their families, she still felt that huge gaping hole in her heart. She wondered if she would ever know. If she would ever be able to bury her brother and finally be at peace.

That was all she wanted.

Since she had turned eighteen, she had a constant stream of suitors. She had declined to take the crown at that age, knowing she needed more time so the royal court continued to govern the country. The royal court was just barely holding the country together since the massacre.

Her suitors bored her. They were only after one thing and she wasn’t about to give that to them.

She found herself spending more time with Lincoln, her closest advisor outside of Marcus. They would ride their horses together, and of course, they would be photographed in public together. The people had already agreed that Lincoln was to be her duke when she took the crown and Octavia was too tired to correct them.

When the rumors had surfaced and the time had gone on without Bellamy’s body being returned to her, she couldn’t shake the naggling thought that maybe...just _maybe..._

No! No, it was impossible. There was no way he could be alive.

_But..._

Octavia sighs again, reaching into her desk and pulling out a piece of crisp white paper and a pen. Her handwriting is atrocious but it will have to do, she notes as she begins to write.

A knock comes at the door while she is still writing. “Enter.”

Lincoln crosses the threshold, gently closing the door behind him. “Your majesty, your presence is requested in the throne room.”

Octavia scowls at the paper, not looking up. “Well my presence is going to be a little late. I need to finish this. And drop the ‘your majesty’, there’s no one here.”

Lincoln flashes her a smile and walks over to the desk, peeking at the paper. “Can I ask?”

“You may,” Octavia replies softly. “Just don’t inform Marcus. He will have my head if he knows what I am doing.”

“What are you doing?”

Octavia sets her pen down and flits her grey eyes to meet his brown ones. “I need to know,” she whispers and Lincoln nods in understanding. “I need to at least try. Marcus told me I was being ridiculous when I brought this up last year and wouldn’t hear of it.”

“You do realize you will be bringing yourself a world of pain?” Lincoln asks her gently. “Octavia, people will try to swindle you.”

“I know,” she says in resignation. “I’ve always been able to call out the ones that are fake but _maybe.”_

“You can try it,” Lincoln tells her. “But if your brother is alive, and this is  big if, someone will have to bring him forward. Bellamy would have come home by now if –“

Octavia winces at the words. “I know,” she says again. She reaches for his hand and he links their fingers together. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Lincoln asks.

“For being there.”

He gives her a smile that she just manages to return, the corners of her lips lifting up briefly. Her mouth feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.

She will do this. She will try to bring her brother home one last time before the coronation.

-;

Roan Azgeda takes a large bite from the apple he had nicked from the cart in the marketplace as he reads the notice on the wall.

_1,000,000 Gold Coins For the Safe Return of the Prince._

“What are you reading?” He takes another messy bite of the apple, pointing to the poster. Clarke peeks over his shoulder, eyes widening as she takes in the words. “Do you realize what we could do with a million gold coins?”

“Buy back the palace?” Roan offers and Clarke laughs.

“Something like that.” She tears down the poster, crumbling it up in her fingers. “You know, this could be the best con we ever pulled.”

Roan raises a brow. “Come again?”  

 _One million gold coins._ Goodness that money could go far. Roan was close, but she wouldn’t buy back the palace. No she had plans for that money. Plans of a great adventure that she had been robbed off at a very young age.

She had begun hearing the rumors when she was eighteen years old. About the prince, the boy that had been separated from his sister the night their parents were murdered in the palace massacre. The story had always been painful to hear because yes, she understood more than anything what it was like to have family ripped away from you.

She sometimes wondered what would have happened to her if Roan hadn’t found her.

Dead probably. Or in prison.

She had taken to petty theft to stay alive after the death of her mother and the foreclosure on her childhood home. She had been left with very little after that.

The thievery had first been food and the occasional coat and it developed into actual cash that she could swindle off of the unsuspecting male.

Roan had been one of her victims. And he had caught her in her game.

 _You can’t con a con,_ he had told her that afternoon and then took her right under his wing.

They worked cons together in the last years. Sometimes pretending to be a married couple, sometimes pretending to be brother and sister. They would take money mostly and by the time the police would be called, the two of them would be long gone.

Now they lived in a place that no one of power would suspect. The abandoned palace. Sure, it sounds morbid and she and Roan avoided staying in the rooms of the family, usually settling down in the one large upstairs study.

Clarke had realized they could make even more money creating fake identification and visas for people. Word of mouth carried them the business they needed and they would receive five to ten visitors a day at their hideout, asking for the papers that they would need.

Octavia had returned to the country years ago, living in a large mansion somewhere on the outskirts of town. A new palace had been erected, brought to life in the last years. It would be opened the night of Octavia’s coronation.

“It would be the perfect con,” Clarke says, linking her arm with his. The cap on her tilts and her hair begins to spill down. “We could maybe even get more if we return the ‘prince’ even sooner.”

“Before the coronation?” Roan asks.

Clarke dips her chin. “Possibly. We would have to get started now.”

“Wait a minute.” Roan pulls away from her. “What’s this ‘we’ business?”

Clarke laughs. “You know it’s always been _us_ , Roan.” She gives him her sweetest smile.

“Yeah yeah,” he rolls his eyes, tossing her the apple and giving her a playful nudge. She takes a large bite, juice dribbling down her chin that she wipes away with the back of her gloved hand. Since winter was coming, the apple crop was at its best. She had nicked plenty of apples within the last weeks, storing them at the palace. If they couldn’t get the proper money they needed before the snow hit, apples would be all they were eating this winter.  

“So tell me. _What_ is your devious plan?”

Clarke darts ahead, reaching a lamp post and swinging around it. “Well isn’t it obvious?” Roan stares at her blankly and she scoffs. “We find prince Bellamy.”

Roan, who had just taken another bite of the apple, promptly chokes. When Clarke thumps him on the back, he glares at her. “And how do you suppose we do that? Pull the boy out of the air?”

“ _No.”_ Clarke shakes her head like what he had just said was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. “We find a man that is willing to go along on our con, one that resembles what the prince would look like today, pass him off as Bellamy and by the time the princess wises up, we are off spending our reward.”

“And then Princess Octavia becomes queen and sends out a notice for our heads?” Roan asks.

Clarke harrumphs. “Roan, _do_ give me more credit. You don’t think we’d be staying in this godforsaken country as soon as we got our hands on that money, do you?”  

He chuckles, poking her in the shoulder before bowing low. “At last, the student has surpassed the teacher.”

She laughs too, pinching his bicep. “And besides, who else could pull it off but you and me?”

.

.

**Author's Note:**

> I am having so much fun with this.  
> You have to review to get another chapter! Thanks loves.


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